


Gold

by midnight_marimba



Series: Heart to Heart [3]
Category: Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Homelessness, Late game spoilers, Post Act 3, hints of luminerik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22294228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnight_marimba/pseuds/midnight_marimba
Summary: Sylvando involves himself in Erik’s struggle to come to terms with his new responsibility.
Relationships: Camus | Erik & Sylvia | Sylvando (Dragon Quest XI)
Series: Heart to Heart [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1587526
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Act 2 and 3, set after Act 3. Series is keeping a chronological order, but each piece works standalone.

The Salty Stallion felt like a living thing when Sylvando stepped out on deck, full of people in a way he’d quickly come to love in the Luminary’s company, and then had missed after the fact.

He began a quick mental inventory of the passengers on board. He still wasn’t quite used to being in charge, no matter what Dave always claimed about him being captain of the ship, and here he was trying to build up a circus troupe of his own, in addition to transporting a couple of dear friends. He found it comforting to mentally run through the list of people under his care and make sure that no one’s immediate needs were being neglected.

There were the dancers, a married couple, whirling across the deck in a vaguely familiar partnered dance. They spun to a halt, struck a pose, and bowed. Sylvando applauded enthusiastically, even though he’d only caught the final moments.

He turned his head, and there was the new contortionist from Sniflheim standing at a companionable distance from Dave up at the wheel. Both of them were clapping, too.

There were the two young teenagers sitting together on the stairs nearby, chatting and giggling. The son of the dancers absently swayed to keep his baby sister asleep on his shoulder. 

There was one person missing.

Sylvando stepped closer to the stairs and the second teenager. “Hello, Mia! Any idea where your brother’s gotten to?”

Mia rolled her eyes, then jerked her chin upwards. “Try the crow’s nest. Don't know why he feels the need on a nice ship like this.”

“Oh?”

“We used to hide up there on, um, other ships, when we thought it was better to stay out of the way. Which was most of the time that we thought we could get away with it.” She pursed her lips and glanced from Sylvando to her companion. “Don’t either of you ever tell him I told you about that.”

“Cross my heart,” Sylvando promised. “But maybe I’ll just pop up and have a little visit, no?”

“If you want. He’s kind of exhausting lately,” said Mia.

“Exhausting?”

“Moody. But he won’t talk to me about it. Whatever. I’m having a good time without him.”

“Hmm. I’ll be back, then.”

Sylvando climbed up to the top of the ship, taking an instant along the way to appreciate the little thrill of being airborne on the rope ladder, but he was a bit too concerned to take his time.

He popped his head over the low wall and spotted Erik. The young man sat with his knees up to his chest, arms crossed atop them, head resting back against the wooden wall of the nest, and eyes closed. He might have been sleeping, except that he took a long, visible sigh and lifted a hand to run it through his hair.

“Hello, darling!” Sylvando exclaimed with loud, dramatic enthusiasm, deciding this looked like a mood that needed to be knocked loose as quickly as possible, and knowing that Erik was a little more likely to spill the beans when he was already off balance.

“Gah!” Erik jerked in startlement, rapping his knuckles against the wall. “Where’s a guy have to go around here to get a little peace and quiet?”

“Well, that depends, honey. We can accomodate a man wanting a bit of solitude to enjoy the sunshine and the fresh sea air. But you’re in the shade and out of the wind, right there, and I think I might have to float the notion that you were brooding, which is a strictly rationed activity on this ship.”

Erik grunted and looked away, which Sylvando willfully interpreted as an invitation. He eyed the space in the crow’s nest, then boosted himself in. It was crowded for two people, but Erik hardly took up half the room. Sylvando plopped down with his feet close in front of himself, his toes covered by some of the tails from his tunic and his hands resting on top, and his knees sticking up in the air to the sides, in what he thought of as his frog imitation. Erik gave him a raised eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitched, and Sylvando judged that the maneuver into close quarters had successfully come across as intended: ridiculous rather than flirtatious.

“I’ll leave you alone sooner if you talk to me,” Sylvando promised. “Anything you want to be a secret, just let me know. You can’t get a secret out of me with a crowbar.”

“Hm.” Erik’s gaze slid away and stuck to the wooden wall next to them. “Where’s Mia?”

“Down on deck, chatting with Leo.”

“Hm. I’m supposed to let that happen, right?”

“What?”

“Her talking with boys. Only, I kind of want to corner him in a dark room and tell him he’d better keep his damn hands away from her.”

“Oh.” Sylvando smiled slightly. “I don’t think there’s a universal consensus on the best script, there, but if it was me, I’d give it a lighter touch. Just make sure she knows, ah. Have you had the talk with her, yet?”

“The talk?”

“You know. The talk.” Sylvando wiggled his eyebrows.

“Oh, goddess!” Erik pressed a hand over his face.

“No?”

“No!”

“You probably should.”

“Goddess.”

“If you can’t bring yourself to do it, I could step in, or we can ask one of the ladies in the troupe,” Sylvando offered. “But as I understand it, it’s usually a duty taken on by family.”

“Ngh.”

“I don’t think they’re moving along too fast. You probably have a week or two at least.”

“Sylv!”

“Oh, all right, longer than that. Their family is fairly conservative, the boy is respectful, and Mia’s pretty young. I don’t think you really have to worry just now, per se. But the talk is important.”

Erik dropped the hand from his face. His mortification shifted into something gloomier than Sylvando had expected, and after a moment of hesitation, Erik spoke in a quiet, strained tone. “Sylv, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“What do you mean, darling?”

“I thought it would be easy. We used to be so close, and I was a year older than her, and I always thought since I was the big brother, I needed to come up with all the answers, so I just did. Figured out what we should do, what was best for both of us, as well as I could. Wasn’t always right, but I didn’t spend too much time worrying about it, because there wasn’t time for that, and not a lot of room to do it better, anyway.”

“And now?” Sylvando prompted when Erik paused.

“Now it seems like it should be easier. I’m so much older. I’m a grown man, and she’s still the same little kid sister she was before. But it’s not easier. It’s really, really not. I mean, we have enough money to get by, and we’ve got a warm place to sleep, so that part’s good, for now. But outside of the immediate future and a vague promise of adventure? I don’t know what I’m doing with her at all.”

“I understand that teenagers are a bit tricky to take care of at the best of times,” Sylvando offered. He flattered himself that he’d done all right so far with El and Erik where they still needed someone to offer a little guidance, but then, he’d never established a relationship where he had any real authority over them to fight against, as one might when caring for a younger child.

“I wouldn’t know,” said Erik. “I had to take care of myself. Mia’s almost to the age I was when every day meant trying to find a new place to sleep…”

Abruptly, Erik’s mouth clamped shut, and he glared at the floor while a visible flush came over his cheeks. Sylvando felt his own expression soften in sympathy. No wonder Erik rarely said anything about his past. He was far too proud to want anyone else to know that he’d ever struggled through anything less than a comfortable existence.

Sylvando knew that feeling.

Only one thing to do, though.

“I’ve never particularly enjoyed those sorts of moments, myself, to tell you the truth. Not knowing where you’re going to sleep next, or where the next meal’s coming from.”

Erik scowled for a moment, like he was ready to fight over any hint of pity, then blinked and raised his eyes to look at Sylvando. “You?” he asked incredulously.

“When I ran away from home to follow the circus, I didn’t really plan it out ahead of time. Then they told me I couldn’t join up when I caught up to their caravan, so I kept following from a distance. All I ate for a week or two was fruit I found growing in sight of the road and bits of food that strangers gave me when they overheard my stomach.” He was the one to look away, this time. “I was lucky, then, that the troupe leader had a softer heart than she ever wanted to admit, and she let me stay after the second time she caught me trying to sleep under their wagon in the rain. Lucky that they were the sort to take in a strange boy and treat him like family once that decision was made.”

He paused, and Erik shifted to a slightly more open posture, uncrossing his arms and resting his hands on his knees. “I had no idea.”

“I don’t talk about it. Nor about the same parts of being a lone, wandering entertainer, later on. Figuring out how to maintain a livelihood based on voluntary donations was, let’s say, a learning process. I lost count of the number of times I ran out of money, back then. And with the pride my papi taught me, asking outright for help was the hardest thing I ever had to learn to do.”

Erik studied his face, and Sylvando manfully produced a small smile. Then Erik looked away again, but this time, his face was more thoughtful than unhappy, and his words seemed to come more freely.

“The Vikings weren’t great, but they kept us in more or less enough food, depending on how their expeditions went, and how happy they were with our work, and what kind of mood they were in. Mia and I found that old house, so even if they tried to punish us by making us sleep outside, we had a roof. A home, I guess, since we just started staying there most nights once we found it. But I couldn’t stand to stay there after Mia was…” He fell silent, shaking his head.

“Understandable,” Sylvando murmured.

“Anyway. I made it through the years in the slums, but they weren’t good years. Even after I started to get good at what I did. Honestly, outside of being with El, I’m not sure I’ve had any good years. I love Mia, but she was the only really great thing in my life. I don’t know what a good life looks like at her age. I promised her this grand adventure, but I’m afraid I’m going to mess it up.”

“Well, it seems like she’s having fun so far, except that she’d like to spend more time with her big brother.”

Erik winced. “It’s just that every time I see her, she wants to talk about how she’s looking forward to this perfect adventure. This great new life together. I don’t know if I can live up to it. She’s going to be disappointed, sooner or later.”

“Darling, you can’t plan an adventure that way. There’s no way to guarantee perfection. You just have to take what you get and make the best of it. She’ll either understand, or she’ll lose her taste for it and want to move on to something tamer soon enough.”

Erik frowned. “I keep thinking I should have asked El to come with us. Everything always turned out fine with him around. But it wouldn’t be fair to either of them. Mia wanted to do something with just me and her, and El has his own life to be getting on with. His own family.”

Sylvando bit his tongue to keep from interfering in that without thinking it through first. Much as he’d like to turn the ship around and shove the boys back together, it also seemed like a little intermission might set them up nicely for a second act. El could use a bit of time to figure out his post-heroic self, first, and maybe Erik could do with a chance to gather evidence that his own heroic self still existed outside of El.

“Erik, honey, I’m positive that El is looking forward to the day you show up on his doorstep, but I think you’re going to be fine on your own in the meantime. I know you. You plan ahead, you keep an eye on your money, you throw in vegetables when you cook, you can start a fire with nothing but sticks. You can even be polite to strangers when you put your mind to it.”

Erik huffed a laugh at that part. “Not that you’d know from firsthand experience.”

Sylvando smiled at the memory of their first meeting, then continued. “I haven’t caught wind of any dreadful monsters bothering people since we finished our mission, and even if you run into one while you’re poking around in dark and spooky caves, I’ve seen you in action so many times that I’m not really worried. You’re strong enough to handle most things, and smart enough and quick enough to get yourself out of trouble if you stumble across something terrible.”

That wasn’t completely true: of course he worried. But he supposed any mother would when her chicks left the nest, and if you adopted a boy with knives in his hands, you had to know he might not ever settle into the safest sort of life. At some point, you had to have faith in him and let him go.

“I guess it’s not so much survival that I’m worried about. Sylv, I don’t…” Erik hesitated, teetering on the brink of something, then tipped over into a full confession. “I don’t think I’m a good brother to her. I left her there, and I think in the beginning I sort of latched onto El because I missed her. Like I was trying to replace her.”

“Sweetheart. Just because you start to love somebody new doesn’t mean you love somebody else any less.”

Erik sucked in a sharp breath, then let it out in a long sigh, not quite acknowledging the statement, but not fighting it, either. Then he shook his head.

“I only ever asked for his help to save her when it was convenient. It wasn’t even hard. I almost think he would have wandered in there and fixed her on his own, even if I hadn’t been there. And then I left her again. And I’d do the same thing over again if I needed to, because what we had to do was important, and there was no way I was letting El go off to face all that without me, but I don’t think I deserve the way she looks at me like I’m her hero. I never really earned that.”

“Well. One.” Sylvando held up a finger in illustration. “You didn’t have a way to help her, and when you finally found help, you did bring it to her, so you did exactly what you should have done. Doesn’t really matter if it was simple or not, in the end, or if you did it in the most optimal way possible. Two. You did sort of save the entire world, darling. In fact, I believe you’re one of my heroes, too.”

Erik gave a small laugh. “You were there, too. Does that make you your own hero?”

“Well, of course it does. I’d be a fool not to count The Great Sylvando among my personal inspirations.” He smiled, pleased when Erik’s laughter came a little more freely at that.

“Okay, fine. I guess I saved the world for Mia, too. Maybe it wasn’t that bad of a decision." Erik ran a hand through his hair. "Guess I ought to stop dwelling on the past and think about the future.”

Sylvando gave him time to process, quietly watching his face as it smoothed out for a moment before falling into a grimace.

“Ugh. If I stop looking at the past, I actually am kind of worried about survival. Maybe not in the immediate life and death sense, but, what if something does go wrong? Maybe I ought to send her to that Academie after all. She wasn’t really excited when I told her about it, but at least she’d be taken care of.”

“Mm. If you want my advice, she’s not at a good age for you to tell her to make a major life decision that she really doesn’t want to do, if you can help it. In fact, she’s close to the age I was when I ran away from home for pretty much that very reason. I think you might do better to listen to what she wants for herself, and try to go along with it unless you’re positive it’s an extremely bad idea and you can explain why.”

“Huh. I guess I can see that. She’s definitely got a stubborn streak. Yeah, I think you’re right.”

“Oh, it’s always lovely to hear someone admit that.”

“Okay. I guess we’ll stick to the plan,” Erik said, but his frown came back.

“You’re still worried about it.”

“It’s just been a while since I’ve been on my own, or since I’ve been in charge of anything. What if I make a mistake? What if I let my guard down, and someone steals our stuff in the night, or we have to leave everything behind while we make a break for it, you know?”

“Honey, that’s why you leave something in the bank.”

Erik made a face. “Hate giving my money away to a stranger. What if the banker is the thief?”

“I’ve yet to have a banker rob me blind. They take a lot of pride in their code of conduct. But, okay, for the sake of the argument, let’s suppose that happens. Darling, we both know that not having money can be unpleasant, but it's not quite the end of the world.”

“Yeah, I guess I know I can survive even if I end up with nothing, but I don’t know that I want to go back to living that way. I’m good at thievery, but Mia will see me do it, and she’ll start doing it too, and one of us will get caught, and then she’s either trapped in a dungeon or alone on the streets in a strange town. Or even if we’re not caught, it’s not the best feeling to know that that could change any day. Or knowing that you’re always living on someone else’s loss. And it’s hard to trust anyone you meet in that business. Sometimes it’s fun for a few minutes at a time if you ignore all of that, but it’s not great in the long run. I want her to have a better life than that. I want her to be happy. She deserves that.”

“Hmm. I can’t quite bring myself to encourage you to break the law, though I’d certainly prefer that you not starve. But I think you’re selling yourself a bit short, here. First of all, you’re on a treasure hunting expedition at this very moment, so I think there’s a very good chance you’ll find a bit of profit in that.”

“Sure, if we’re lucky.”

“You have a knack for it. I lost count long ago of the number of times you thought to look into some little nook or cranny and found a dusty old pile of fabulous jewelry, just while we were traveling together.”

“I guess so. But it’s never guaranteed. Kind of a dumb idea to ask how to afford tonight’s dinner and answer with luck.”

“True enough, but there are other options for the shorter term. Think about how many towns you’ve personally helped out of a jam. You think they won’t remember you and your help? You do have a striking appearance, honey…”

“Wha…” Erik was visibly flustered at that.

“With that blue hair, blue eyes, the confident stance, the sense of style? The clothes El puts you in? From one fashion icon to another, honey, anyone close to your age is going to remember you, and so is anyone with an available child or grandchild in your range.” He didn’t speak aloud of his own hope that it wouldn’t be too long before Erik finally met up again with El and they hashed things out between them.

“Uh.” Erik gaped at him, noticeably pink now.

“Anyway, you’re at least a little bit famous, darling, and your reputation is for helping people in all kinds of places. So if you ever end up in a spot where you need a bit of help, yourself, you already have plenty of leads on where to look for it.”

Erik still looked embarrassed, but also thoughtful. “Asking for help, huh.”

“Asking for help. If you aren’t comfortable asking outright for resources, you could ask for paying work. Wash some dishes, run some errands, clear out some pests. In either case, folks are more likely to say yes to a returning hero than a stranger.”

“I guess that makes sense. Doesn’t even sound like that much of a stretch, now that you mention it, after the kinds of favors El had us doing for everyone and their cat.”

“Mm-hmm. Besides, if you ever get really stuck, you have to know that you can come to any of us. After everything we’ve been through together? We’re all family now, darling. Mia, too, by extension. El will probably be disappointed if you don’t come to him first, but I certainly wouldn’t ever turn you away. I might try to convince you to join the circus if you stick around long enough.” He winked. “But I would never turn you away.”

“Ah.” Erik’s eyes took on a slight sheen, and he swallowed twice before he managed, “Thanks, Sylv.”

“Of course, darling.” He waited for a long moment of companionable silence before adding, “Anything else on your mind?”

“Not really. Think I might go check in on Mia. Maybe get to know that other boy a little.”

“A lovely plan.”

They both stood, and Sylvando shifted out of the way to let Erik go first, but Erik paused and turned back to face him. “Sylv?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Thanks.” Erik reached and put a hand on Sylvando’s arm for a moment, the sort of casual touch he usually only gave to Mia or El or sometimes the twins: the people with whom he felt the most comfortable.

“You’re very welcome,” Sylvando answered, beaming.

Erik lifted himself out of the crow’s nest with an acrobat’s agility, and Sylvando watched him with a secret little wistful hope for the circus contingency. Then Erik stopped and gave him a sideways look.

“I, uh, think maybe I’ll take you up on your offer.”

Sylvando blinked. “The circus?”

“The talk. With Mia. You said family should do it, right? So it’s pretty much your job.”

“Oh!” Sylvando pressed a palm to his cheek, startled and then immensely delighted by the outright affirmation of family. “I’d be honored. If you’re sure you don’t want to do it yourself.”

“Honestly, I don’t know anything about girl stuff, and I don’t really want to, either.”

“Hmm. Are you sure? I could give the talk to both of you.”

Erik started climbing downward. “Sorry, Sylv, I can’t hear you anymore. The wind’s too loud up here,” he said clearly into the mild breeze.

Sylvando laughed, but he allowed the escape. He took a moment of solitude to enjoy the sunshine and the fresh sea air, which suited his mood perfectly. Then he launched himself out of the crow’s nest to rejoin the rest of his crew and family down below.


End file.
